Canon vs Nikon
Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 at 01:54pm
Back when I started thinking about getting a digital SLR camera my choice was between a Canon and a Nikon.
Last night I started a seven week digital SLR course over at Box Hill TAFE. This was actually David’s (who I host ride-extravaganza.com for) idea as he also has a digital SLR, specifially a Nikon D80.
I don’t expect to learn much on the theoretical side, which is what happened last night as it confirmed what I had read or heard from people about apertures and shutter speeds. Practical techniques should be another matter, both from the exercises (some of which are outside with a tripod for long exposures) and from the teacher’s 20 year experience.
What does this have to do with a choice between Canon and Nikon?
Almost of the people I know with a digital SLR have a Canon, the others being two Nikons and an Olympus. From this and what I had seen online I expected this distribution to continue at the course. I was mistaken.
There are ten students in the course; five Nikons, four Canons and a single Olympus. The teacher even commented that not that long ago that Canon dominated (out of 15 students max) with only a couple of non-Canon cameras in each course.
Something that could be indicitive of the recent rise of Nikon (in the type of people taking this course) is that four of the five Nikon’s were the D80 with a single D40x. On the other hand the Canon’s were all different; a handled down 350D, my 400D, a brand new 450D (nice and shiny) and a 40D (even nicer and more shiny).
Tagged with: camera
The more I hear about digital SLR’s the more I want one. Especially when I’m doing show photography. I guess I just miss the manual control of an SLR.
A guy came and shot my show the other night with a pro-sumer digital. It just didn’t get the same results as even a basic digital SLR.
Did you compare your 400 to the 450?
Damien - July 18th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
I did get a chance to look at the 450D and there are no compelling differences between it and the 400D. The bigger LCD display, live view and that it uses SD cards are nice, but that’s all it is, nice.
Stephen - July 18th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Nikon seem to be getting a lot of positive commentary lately: E.g. http://duncandavidson.com/2008/07/armchair-quarterbacking-the-d7.html
This page and the following on dpreview give an idea of the differences between the 400 and 450. I’d go for the 450 as the extras would come in handy. Particularly the live preview, which I miss from my point an shoot camera for doing shots above my head or on or close to the ground. http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos450d/page2.asp
Wes - July 19th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
I went with a 2nd hand Canon 300D because of the abundance of accessories available on ebay. Similar to choosing an ipod over other mp3 players.
hamish - July 21st, 2008 at 11:58 am